Days like this make me so wish that I was independently wealthy so I could have blogged my reaction to the Pope’s resignation and not having to go to work. That reaction has been bubbling up through me all day.

I remember when he was elected and when I first heard the word “Joseph” I was already jumping up and down and screaming for joy. Whatever the exactly opposite reaction to this is what I experienced this morning. When I first saw a reference to this on Twitter I thought surely this is typical bad media coverage, but I soon found out this was not so. I felt that buzzed feeling you have when you come close to having an accident where both your mind and body reacts.

I am both shocked and yet not surprised. There has certainly been clues to this possibly happening and I thought that just perhaps at a later date this might just be an option he might choose. That he choose it now is what mostly surprised me. It is one thing to think about such a possibility and another to see it happen. Most of my reaction was quite selfish. I felt a disturbance in the force and thought “noooooooooooo” this can’t be! I so love pretty much everything about Pope Benedict XVI. I greedily soak up everything he says and writes and so it is like a blow to have this taken away. Still you also have to wonder about what he would have written if he not become Pope and was able to retire. Perhaps we will find some of this out. There has always been a tension in him in regards to serving the Church from the time he was first appointed bishop, his years as Prefect of the CDF, and then becoming Pope. His coat of arms with the bear of St. Corbinian has been an indicator of this and he has long carried the pack for his beloved Church. To carry and to go where he did not personally choose, but to live a life of service to the Church. Yet even St. Corbinian’s bear was finally loosed to return to the forests.

I certainly won’t be second-guessing his decision. If he thought this was the best for the Church then who am I to disagree? His decision will also certainly have some influence on future Pope’s as another possible route. The path of suffering that Blessed John Paul II took was a blessing for the world and perhaps even this act of humility by the current Pope will also be in its own way. So much of the world only see the office of Pope as a power and not the weight of the world the office holder assumes.

Now once his resignation takes effect what do you refer to him as? Is it like political office where you would still refer to him as “Pope” and “Holy Father”? Or would he simply become Cardinal Ratzinger again?

I am though annoyed by all the talk of who is “papabile.” Right now I just really don’t want to talk about it. It feels in some ways like he died and speaking of his successors feels to me like having your wife die and talking about possible girlfriends. This is a silly metaphor, yet it has some validity in my own reaction. Still the Church is not a personality cult and whoever fills the shoes of the fisherman will be Peter. When Blessed John Paul II died it was Cardinal Ratzinger that I most wanted to be pope. As a convert he was the one most familiar to me and the one I admired the most. This time around I don’t really have a favorite. The fact that we had Blessed John Paul II who is arguably the greatest philosopher to be Pope followed by Pope Benedict XVI arguably the greatest theologian to be Pope will certainly be a tough act to follow. That is if the papacy was an “act” or a historical competition against previous claimants.

It is hard to believe that when Easter does come that it is almost assured that it will be with a new Pope. His resignation has led me to that Lenten feeling of loss two days early and this Lent is going to be exceptionally penitential in one dimension. The media and the talking heads are the penitential aspect I am thinking about. The collective low IQ of the media will take a logarithmic downturn over the coming month or so in regards to the conclave.

No doubt we are already hearing and will be hearing constantly how the election of a new pope will change the Church. If they only pick the right guy then all those annoying doctrines well be shed like the skin of a snake and sloughed off with the shiny new skin of progress. There is a part of me that could almost with for the election of a Cardinal who would be described in political terms as a progressive and liberal. One that was a darling of dissenters. I could almost wish for this because of the fun that would ensue as the progressive pope would do no such thing. When Empress Theodora arranged the election of Pope Vigilius she thought she had a like-minded pope-in-the-pocket that she could control. When he subsequently defended orthodox theology she was not amused. Watching possible this aspect of the charism of infallibility in action might be fun as dissenter freak out over not getting what they want.

As a convert I remember feeling some jealousy before when some Catholics would be able describe the day of election of multiple popes. Now I don’t feel quite the same way that while I was glad to rack up one experience of white smoke and Habemus Papam, I would have preferred to delay by more than a decade the need of white smoke again.

Via Phil Lawler :

Sunday brought the staggering news that in the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, a priest who had been convicted of groping a young man has now been appointed as co-director for the archdiocesan office of clergy formation. What could Archbishop John Myers possibly have been thinking? How could he be so utterly insensitive?

To be sure, the conviction of Father Michael Fugee was overturned on appeal. But rather than risk another trial he made a plea agreement with prosecutors and agreed to enter a counseling program for sex offenders. So a sex offender is heading an archdiocesan office. And not just any office, but an office designed to guide other priests in their spiritual formation. Is this not exactly the sort of scandal that the Dallas Charter was supposed to prevent?

An archdiocesan spokesman said that Archbishop Myers has full confidence in Father Fugee, even while emphasizing that the priest is now in a position where he does not have access to children. Does that really bespeak full confidence?

Under the Dallas Charter—the policies the American bishops approved at their June 2002 meeting in Dallas, in a panicked response to public outcry about the burgeoning scandal—a priest who is credibly accused of the sexual abuse of children should be removed from public ministry. Yet here was Father Fugee, who had been not only accused but convicted by a New Jersey jury, serving in an office of the archdiocese. It emerged that he had previously served as a hospital chaplain, with unsupervised access to children, even after the conviction. The archdiocesan review board had cleared him for ministry, as had the archbishop. The case vividly illustrates that the policies put in place by the Dallas Charter provide no reassurance at all to the faithful, if the policy-makers do not prove themselves trustworthy.

There’s more. During Father Fugee’s trial, the jury heard a statement in which the priest said that he was homosexual or bisexual. (An appeals court would later cite concerns about that statement as a reason for overturning the verdict.) So now a priest who is homosexual or bisexual, who is in a sex-offender program, is dispensing advice to other priests in Newark, and potentially dealing with the priests who are coping with similar problems. Is there any reason for confidence that he is offering mature spiritual counsel? Can we assume that he would respond properly to other cases in which priests were accused of misconduct?

The astonishment, bewilderment, and outrage that greeted the news from Newark is completely understandable; the complacent reaction from the archdiocese (“We have not received any complaints from the prosecutor’s office…”) is appalling.

Right now, one of two things is true. Either

1. The phone is ringing off the hook in the office of Archbishop Myers, as other bishops all around the country call to ask him what on earth he has done, and demand that he quickly undo it. Or…
2. Ten years into the greatest crisis the Church has faced since the Reformation, most American bishops still haven’t begun to grasp the problem.

There is no third option. And as I look at those two possibilities, I shudder to think which is more likely. God help us.

One of the repercussions of priestly sexual abuse is how to handle a sex abuser. That they be suspended and dismissed from the clerical state is certainly required. Although turning them out on the street to possible abuse others has its own problems. There could be some case made for continuing to employ them in the diocese to prevent this, but this is fraught with problems. Employing them to guide other priests in their spiritual formation is incomprehensible. Desk job or not and regardless of how much he is supervised this shows a totally tin-eared approach both as a prudential matter and the obvious scandal it would cause.

The care of even a priest who is an abuser is an important matter and maybe ideally the case would be that they would live out their lives in for example the environment of a monastery. Maybe that is rather naive and that really there is no one solution. Still the solution is certainly not employing them for priestly spiritual formation.

Media bias can be a rather boring subject. Although this story is a text book case in regards to how the media treated the Family Research Council shooter and how the shooter used a “hate map” from the Southern Poverty Law Center to target the FRC.

Get Religion has a comprehensive post on the subject and the comparisons from previous media treatment.

On Friday the Obama administration released another “compromise” on the HHS mandate. Unlike the previous so-called compromise this time there is actually some minor change.

The new proposal eliminated three of the four prongs of the old rule: inculcate values, and primarily hire and serve co-religionists. But it kept the fourth prong from the exact IRS code section. The change therefore does not expand who is covered to schools or hospitals: it simply makes it clear to churches that they are covered even if they serve non-co-religionists. (Source)

So the new HHS mandate is slightly less evil than the previous one. No doubt many progressive Catholics who objected somewhat to the HHS mandate will be totally fine with it now.

As it is now it means that Catholic schools, hospitals, some charities, etc still have their rights taken away. EWTN still would be forced to comply. Private employers also would have zero rights in this regard.

The HHS mandate has an understanding of rights that is totally nonsensical. Rights are something that individuals have and those individual rights are the basis for what we see as an institutional right. Houses of worship receive their rights not because they have innate rights, but are projected via the rights of individuals regarding freedom of religion. The Bill of Rights detailed personal freedoms and it is the individual that receives them and not some corporate body. No doubt I am putting this forth badly, but still the point is that individuals are the proper object of rights.

To say that an individual has free exercise of religion and then say that it doesn’t apply if they run a for profit business order is nonsense. To say that same for a non-profit company whose sole purpose is to spread the Gospel is even more non-sensical. If you can’t act on your conscience you are not free. Although the HHS mandate goes beyond just questions of religious liberty. Objections to contraception, abortion, and sterilization can be based on natural law arguments. The HHS mandate takes a battering ram to the freedom of conscience. The Obama administration has a policy view that they would ram down the throats of everybody with typical social engineering and elitist thinking. Typical of enlightened thinkers is that there is usually a reign of terror to go with it. We are suppose to be pleased that instead of “off with your heads”, it is currently only “off with your consciences.”

It will be interesting to see the USCCB’s response. Archbishop Chaput certainly is not buying it.

The scholar Yuval Levin has stressed that the new HHS mandate proposal, “like the versions that have preceded it, betrays a complete lack of understanding of both religious liberty and religious conscience.” In reality, despite the appearance of compromise, “the government has forced a needless and completely avoidable confrontation and has knowingly put many religious believers in an impossible situation.”

One of the issues America’s bishops now face is how best to respond to an HHS mandate that remains unnecessary, coercive and gravely flawed. In the weeks ahead the bishops of our country, myself included, will need both prudence and courage – the kind of courage that gives prudence spine and results in right action, whatever the cost. Please pray that God guides our discussions.

Whatever the cost is exactly right. The Obama administration would like to wear us out in time and money. They know this attack on religious freedom will not get the attention it deserves.